History of Africa

On the 3rd of August, I was asked by a boy aged 11 whether Nelson Mandela was the Prime Minister of Africa; whether South Africa is the capital of Nigeria; did not know that Africa is a continent NOT a country and did not know that Egypt is in Africa I was intrigued by these question because boys this age are usually more interested in gadgets and not HISTORY let alone African history. The boy in question was a family friend's son. I asked him what he has so far learned on Africa, presuming that this may have something to do with his school work. I was wrong - his curiosity had nothing to do with school - after all, they are on their summer holidays. He had been listening to the news - in fact he assures me that he quite often listen to the news with his parents. "We have not been taught anything about Africa". I was shocked.

In the year when Britain was supposedly celebrating the end of that heinous trade - slave trade, the British school remained indifferent to their country's unequal relationship with Africa. A country whose wealth was built on the lives and sweat of Africans still think it unfit to discuss in their schools this "GOD FORESAKEN" continent! Britain continued to wish that their atrocities and the removal of over 15 million people from the continent when the population of the world was still in its infancy cannot be permamnently deleted when the effects of these still rumble on.

A boy of 11 must be forgiven for his lack of knowledge particularly when he'd not been taught, but can the same be said of BBC and other British broadcasting institutions - for thinking Africa as a country. IS EUROPE GERMANY? The evidence is provided when those idiots who tried to bomb London tube station were found guilty. All the major TV stations reported them as Africans - not the countries that they came from. This is symptomatic of the condemnation of ALL the marginalised of this society - Africans are constantly drowned in an anonymous collectivity. The WHOLE is always blamed for the crime of the SINGLE. We see everyday yet when a police officer is found guilty of a crime, the bad apple sydrome is evoked. When the Austrian girl who was kidnapped and kept captive for years before she escaped and her captor killed himself, we had about an AUSTRIAN, not a European. So why can individual AFRICANS be held accountable for their crimes?